


warmed by sunlight

by cassandor



Series: the moment flowers bloom [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Developing Relationship, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Fluff, I see your Tropes and I Turn Them, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-11-16 12:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandor/pseuds/cassandor
Summary: "I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream." - Van Gogh.The more they learn, the more they don't know.





	warmed by sunlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dasakuryo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasakuryo/gifts).



A seemingly infinite number of choices sprawl out in front of Jyn, and the only thing she can do is stare blankly at them.

She keeps finding herself in this conundrum as of late - ever since she made that first choice to stay on with the Rebellion. Maybe her trouble began even earlier. Ever since she chose to convince the Alliance to go to Scarif.

She prefers to mark her days from the former, mostly because she'd made that decision all on her own, without the Death Star looming over their heads. She'd had the most sleep in years on an actual bed that was  _hers._  Well. It wasn't hers until she'd signed all the necessary forms to actually  _enlist_  in the Rebel Alliance, because the Alliance didn't run like Saw's cadre and there was actual  _datawork_  to fill out. For everything. She couldn't just sleep wherever she felt comfortable or claim a dead comrade's gloves as her own.

Thank the karking stars her proficiency in languages also included the written word, because she honestly didn't know if she'd have stayed this long if she had to ask Cassian to fill out her forms for her.

The most mortifying part is he would’ve, leading to her ultimate confession that she wasn't sure if she was actually born on Coruscant, and didn’t even know _when_  her birthday was. Imagining Cassian’s soft gaze of unspoken concern on her makes her heart seize. The aftermath would be worse -  Jyn cringes, thinking of the poor soul at the receiving end of Cassian's careful ire. She can already hear him tapping away late at night, sending impeccably worded letters that didn’t sacrifice intensity for politeness.

Perhaps Jyn’s current mental journey was entirely pointless and the Alliance already had accessible documents. Who knew? (Cassian would.)

She leans against a wall and shoves her hands deep into her pockets. The weather is balmy and she’s well dressed, but the infrequent breezes are cold. Watching passerby, she continues to mull over her options.

With a quirk of her mouth, Jyn remembers speech-to-text converters on datapads are an actual  _thing._  

There - another luxury once foreign to her. Speaking words into existence makes it easier for the wrong people to hear them. It's why some resistance groups devised unique sign languages. The Alliance had a standard, but Jyn was sure it just Galactic Standard with some of the words switched around like pig-Basic. Saw used a conlang.

Jyn was thrilled to find out Cassian knew bits of the same ones she did - Twi'lek, Notho, and something akin to Standard - meaning they could form a shorthand on missions they shared.

They tended to use it to  _share intel_  during long briefings and over dinner. Bodhi would call it  _gossiping._

Semantics. 

Besides, Cassian wasn't one for collecting  _gossip._  He preferred hard facts, something he could weaponize at worst and use for conversation fodder at best. Jyn took pride in vetting every rumor she shares, even if the look in his eyes seemed to hint he’d already heard it.

She liked those conversations, anyways. The lowered risk of digging up old baggage was worth it. 

He preferred other subjects, though. Ship mechanics, which Jyn enjoys but isn’t as familiar with; slicing, which is enjoyable unless it ends in a disagreement; obscure regulations and bothersome planetary laws, which she despises; and math, which gets Cassian starry-eyed in a way she can’t intentionally replicate. (Unless Kay is involved, and that usually dissolved into highbrow bickering she struggles to decipher. Sometimes in pseudo-binary.)

Their most obvious common interest is the sparring mat. Cassian never talks about sharpshooting unless she asks, and Jyn's always preferred the more tactile options of vibroblades and truncheons to working in Intelligence. She remembers her initial surprise at Cassian's skill in hand to hand combat - he was a spy, yes, and a rebel soldier, but somewhere in Jyn's brain she'd neglected to realize he probably had seen just as many cantina brawls as she had. 

A flash of green catches her eye - an older Nautolan, judging by their sagging lekku, drops one of their many grocery bags, spilling its contents all over the walkway. Passerby hardly slow in their rush - some look down as they step over rolling cans, others hardly notice when their feet connect with flattened boxes. The Nautolan sinks to their hands and knees, trying desperately to snatch back their belongings amidst the crush of beings. 

Jyn shoves her way through the crowd and starts picking up the spilled canned goods. The Nautolan's pure-black eyes widen.

"Thank you," they say, voice hushed, as if about to reveal a conspiracy. "Not many stop to help, these days."

Their eyes are brighter, now, and Jyn wonders if the elderly being senses something. She does nothing more than offer a smile and a shrug as she places the last item in their bag. They stand together, Jyn helping them up. The Nautolan bows their head to her, lekku curling, before heading off.

Jyn waits, watching until the Nautolan safely makes their way out of the crowded market. By the time she turns around, her spot against the wall is taken by a pair of humans bickering over change. Huffing out a sigh, Jyn turns her heel and comes face to face with her choices. She's placed herself right in the shopkeeper's line of vision, but luckily for her they have other patrons.

Now that she's in line, though, there's no escaping the decision. 

Jyn takes a few cautious steps forward, examining the multitude of brightly coloured options, and is caught in the overwhelming tides of confusion. Does she pick the most colourful? The most intricate? The best priced?

Scent might be her answer. Jyn leans forward to sniff a collection of pinklish orange and pale green flowers of the same species. It takes a moment, but soon it's as if her entire brain was dunked into a trash compactor. 

 ****She recoils, then does her best to tamper her facial reaction. Judging by the Human stifling a giggle beside her, she's failed miserably.

 _This_ is why she isn't in Intelligence with Cassian. 

Jyn fiddles with the straps of her fingerless gloves for a moment before peering over at her newfound company. The Human dissolves into a coughing fit, muffled by the hand already clapped over her mouth.

"Did you know those smelled like  _that?_ " she asks, once the other woman is done pretending they hadn't seen anything, and Jyn accepts that some guidance would be useful. "Do these _all_ smell like that?" 

They shouldn't, because Jyn has a faint memory of running through lush green fields and picking the tiniest of blossoms: blues, pinks, yellows. She remembers strewing them about her bedroom and Papa's hair. Jyn thinks her Mama was fond of them, but that might be one of Bodhi's recollections speaking to her. Nevertheless, she's pretty sure most flowers don't stink, or else the Core-raised rebels wouldn't be so fond of them - this planet may have other customs. 

The woman shakes their head vigorously, and Jyn figures she's right.  

"Yes and no," she responds brightly, tucking tightly coiled braids over her shoulder. The white beads threaded in them clink faintly as she does so. "Sasaleas smell awful to most Humanoids, but to Nautolans they smell like euphoria-inducing pheromones." Jyn notices the beads form a pattern reminiscent to markings of a Togurta's lekku. It isn't uncommon for Humans to decorate themselves with a partner or a friend's own markings. "The rest of the flowers should be fine. Some might smell super sweet, but nothing as traumatic as those ones. If they all smelled that bad I wouldn't be getting any."

Jyn nods once, slowly.

"What are you getting?"  

"Some nloras and velanies," she says, pointing towards a bouquet sitting on the stall's counter. They're a mix of clashing colours - at least, Jyn thinks as much - of deep violet and electric pink. Seeming to understand Jyn's slight confusion, she explains: "they smell amazing, especially when together. My wife's blind, so it really doesn't matter how the bouquet looks."

"Oh," Jyn says, suddenly hit with thoughts of Baze and Chirrut. She tucks the names away for future reference. "I hope she likes them."

The other woman grins. "I get them for her every year, but I always find myself hoping she likes them. Spent three months saving up, this year. It's getting harder but the look on her face is worth it."

Jyn's hardly processed the statement when the shopkeeper calls out a number, and then the woman is gone.

Alone to mull over her remaining options, Jyn's afraid to touch the flowers. She only skims her hand over the surface of the most abundant ones, bundles and bundles of red and pink blossoms she recognizes as standard lovers' fare.

Wrinkling her nose, her gaze travels over the sight that's practically burned into her memory at this point. Bouquets and arrangements with price tags higher than her allocated wages are stored in the upper reaches. Jyn knows even those pale in comparison to the ones Imperials flaunt at galas, or the deliveries the man in white sometimes made to her childhood home on Coruscant.

None of those would suit her giftee. 

Jyn reigns her gaze back towards the selection that held her attention the longest. A collection of three-petaled flowers, coloured in mixes of purple, blue, and gold. Each petal is a half circle, giving the impression the whole flower is a multicoloured circle pinned in place by a singular white dot in the middle.

The tag says  _nova lily_ , and lists a price that's just on the upper end of what Jyn can afford. It's beautiful, much like the supernovas it's named for, and even has a slightly sweet scent. 

But against all her reasoning it just doesn't seem right. She's more than willing to give up a healthy amount of credits for a handful of those stunning flowers. Other patrons seem to have the same idea. Jyn notices yet another customer leaving with a bouquet of swirling purple-blue blossoms.

Part of her reluctance may just be the scathing disapproval etched into her every thought process by years of self preservation. The chiding voice in her head sounds too much like Saw, but these days its started to sound like Cassian, too. _The flowers are unnecessary and overpriced._

But everything else seems to pale in comparison. Brillant colours and sweet fragrance only mask the lack of feeling Jyn has for mass-produced luxuries. She's been scouring the market for ages, now, and everything but the flowers feels fake. The lilies feel different -

but it also feels like she's settling.

Jyn does not settle. Cassian does, which is ironic, considering that for years Jyn was perfectly okay with not directly engaging the Empire - at least, she'd convinced herself as such - while Cassian loathed the very concept.

In a short-lived yet searing argument in the days post Scarif, Jyn told Cassian that though she didn't enter battle with the Empire while waving an Alliance flag, she never let Imperials get away with harassing citizens. Which Cassian, as she pointed out, often turned a blind eye to, in the name of a greater objective.

It was the first and only time she'd broached the topic after the fateful Council meeting on Yavin. Something trivial she can't even remember now had dug up that old anger and she'd snapped.

Instead of the cold fury she'd witnessed on the shuttle, he'd faced her with a broken expression she won't ever be able forget.

"I can't save everyone, Jyn," he replied, ending the debate with quiet honesty. "Those decisions will haunt me for the rest of my life. I do my best to do what I think is right, and hope it will be enough." 

She thought she'd understood him until she realized she didn't.

He'd finally trusted her enough to give her the answer she'd demanded of him so long ago, the answer he denied her because he wasn't obligated to justify himself to a stranger. And that answer was something she'd seen the outlines of but not fully comprehended: 

Cassian is full of self-loathing masquerading as practicality. 

The realization leads back to her initial train of thought. Jyn doesn't settle because she, like most beings, believes she deserves some good things. Cassian does not. He might not see a stormtrooper in the mirror - an accusation Jyn regretted when she'd found out how his father died - but the sight disgusts him nonetheless. 

This is why she's getting him flowers. 

Cassian deserves all the nice things, she thinks. Someone who gets him the plump red flowers on Lover's Day, someone who actually knew what he liked instead of gawking at an old flower stall for the better part of an hour. Not someone who argued with him, who meant all the best in the galaxy - who  _did_ the best for the galaxy - and hurled words at him as if they were vibroblades. 

(After her anger bubbled away Cassian gave her a mostly-redacted file.

"This is why I believed in you from the very beginning, before Jedha." Even after she stole his blaster, even when Kay warned him otherwise. 

Jyn waited until he left before looking at the file. It contained a list of all the times she'd stolen or damaged Imperial property.

It was then, Jyn thinks, that she realized she wouldn't be able to run from him.)

She covers her face and sighs.

 _Karking stars,_ Bodhi's HoloNet dramas were starting to get to her. Since  _when_ would Cassian enjoy receiving blood-red flowers sprayed with Force-knows how many chemicals, on a holiday stripped of its original meaning to convince upper-class Coruscanti to flaunt their wealth?

They don't even argue anymore, not like Eadu. Not about world-shattering idealogies, not that now, at least, they're both in the Rebellion. Now they just bicker about how to do things, like season vegetables and bring an enemy to their knees. Cassian had a very high tolerance for all the variation a galaxy could offer, but Jyn manages to (mostly on purpose, these days, because he's cute when he's flustered and trying to be patient with her) drive him up the wall. 

Her hands slip down to her mouth to mask a grin. It fades when she senses someone watching her.

It's the shopkeeper.

Jyn turns, noticing that she's the only one still standing by the storefront, the thick crowds seemingly vanished.  _Shavit._

She's made direct eye contact.

The shopkeeper's countless necklaces jangle as they move, setting a datapad down on the counter and moving towards Jyn. "You look lost," they remark in a slight Rylothian accent.

Jyn blinks slowly, sparing herself from the Twi'lek's unwavering, pointed gaze."I, erm, yeah."

The Twi'lek leans against the counter, keeping themselves firmly in the shadow of an awning fluttering above and away from the midday sun. "Do you know what you're looking for? Price, favourite colour, scent, occasion?" they ask, disinterested, like it's something they've said a thousand times.

"Something... ah..." Jyn flounders under the shopkeeper's barrage of questions. She can't hold it against them, anyways. There's a bag on the counter behind the Twi'lek, under the shelves of brown wrapping paper and glossy ribbons, with oil stains that mean it probably contains their lunch. She can't see what time the store closes for breaks - if it does at all, and every society is different - but it doesn't take a genius to know Jyn's taking up too much precious time. 

She doesn't know what Cassian's favourite colour is. She doesn't even know if he has one, or if he's the type to say he likes them all equally, or that such matters are so trivial when there are battles to be fought.

Honestly, though, Jyn's seen enough of his buried personality - shielded from where the galaxy can take what little he has left - to know he probably  _does_ have one. 

She has two (because why restrict yourself to one?) Green, like the fields she'd last felt freedom in, but the colour's soured after Scarif. Now she favours blue, like a stuffed toy she had once, and incidentally, the same shade as Cassian's old parka, so old it'd been a decade out of production.

"Something?" the shopkeeper echoes flatly. They cross their arms, wrinkles deepening as they frown. The action pushes their lekku back, and Jyn offhandedly notes earrings hanging from her pointed ears. 

"Something nice. I mean, these are all nice, but... something," Jyn shrugs, "unique? But not in a pricey way. In an honest way. Something real and... meaningful."

That made no sense, and yet it made all the sense in the galaxy. Like Cassian's neat stitching holding her scarf together. 

The shopkeeper stares at her, and Jyn considers bolting into the crowd without looking back. 

"I assume you've checked out everything I have already?"

Jyn nods, wondering how long the shopkeeper had noted her presence. She was careful, and could sneak up on pretty much anyone except Cassian, but the Twi'lek looked old enough to have decades of sales experience.

"And I assume you liked none of those?" 

Jyn sighs. "He's practical and I'm broke." 

The shopkeeper nods once. "Have you considered... well, I shouldn't be saying this, but something other than flowers? Like, I dunno, a jacket? New boots?" 

Jyn worries her lips. "Yeah. Uhm. That's a good..." she looks at her own mud-stained boots and remembers the time she'd "gifted" Cassian a blaster. An A-180, same model as she'd lost. He'd given it right back to her, said something about it finding better use with her. Which was true, but still.

Her gaze travels along the dirt, hoping to melt into a puddle right then and there, when a flash of yellow catches her eye.

"Wait, I haven't... those?" 

Jyn points.

"Oh, those," the Twi'lek sighs, wiping her hands on her apron. Her hands are tanned a dark blue, and wrinkly in a way Jyn hasn't seen on any other Twi'lek. She kneels to pick up the basket.

Jyn's already following suit, but the shopkeeper waves off her help, and Jyn can't hope that at her age she'll be just as flexible.

If she makes it that far. She hopes so.

If not, well, shelling out some credits for flowers will be worth it.

"These," the Twi'lek stretches, placing the basket on the counter, "are sunflowers. Not starflowers. I know offworlders get the two mixed up. Sunflowers. They're local. Good thing, 'cause if people started growing these offworld, the galaxy'd be covered with them."

"They're a weed?" Jyn asks, scrunching her face, too many memories of Lah'mu filled with yanking out pesky plants.

"No, no, well, not like how I define a weed. They're just resilient and grow quickly."

Jyn continues to eye her newest catch, and pokes experimentally at one of the bright yellow petals.

"Pretty little things, aren't they? The boy who grows these, he sells the seeds and the flowers, he says I'm the only one who buys the flowers in bulk anymore." 

"Oh."

"They're unique," the shopkeeper inclines her head, necklaces chiming. Jyn catches her train of thought.

"And cheap."

"And you can eat the seeds," she adds. "Practical." 

"And they're pretty."

"Yes?"

Jyn sets a handful of credits on the table. "Yes." The shopkeeper clasps a hand over them and slides the chips off the counter one by one.

"Take them all, if you'd like." 

Jyn stares at the decorative bands around her lekku as the Twi'lek tucks the credits away for safekeeping. "All of them?" 

The shopkeeper looks up and smiles for the first time in their interaction. "I think whoever you're buying them for will be lucky to have them. Not many people appreciate things like sunflowers, these days." She sighs, and pushes the basket towards Jyn.

Some cultures ascribe characteristics to flowers, Jyn remembers, peering at the handful of flowers in the basket. Cassian seems like the type of person who  _would_ know, or at least would've learned while working as a Senatorial aide - the one alias Jyn actually knows well, only by virtue of Alderaan's destruction.

For the first time, she wonders if Cassian's even heard of sunflowers, and brightens at the idea of showing him something new, for once. 

"Sunflowers have meaning?" 

The Twi'lek woman shrugs."They follow the sun - the brightest star in any system - wherever it moves in the sky. Loyalty, adoration, optimism, whatever you wanna call it."

Jyn bites her lip, thinking of Cassian's undying loyalty to the rebel cause, on Fest, as a Separatist, as an anarchist, as part of the Rebel Alliance. Thinks of the way he burns like a candle, like a star, lighting the way for so many, like herself, like Bodhi, to the Rebellion. 

And the growing, blossoming part of her remembers how they'd circled around each other when she'd admitted the tragedy of her life - most importantly, his eyes sparkling when he said  _welcome home._

She reaches in and takes them all. 

* * *

"Erso!"

This is how Kes Dameron finds her - holding a bunch of sunflowers tight to her chest, making her way back to her team's rendezvous point. She's has enough luck that he approaches her from behind, enough time for her to stop mid-step and drop her hands when she recognizes his voice.

Kes grins, stepping to her side. He's careful not to clap a hand on Jyn's shoulder after the unfortunate incident that left him with a bruise that took two weeks to fade. "What'cha got there?"

Jyn's blood runs cold, because kark, Kes is going to make fun of her and the entire Pathfinders team is going to know that old Ice-Queen-Erso is a sappy romantic with a  _weakness_ for bright colours and soft gazes. 

Jyn turns to face him. There's no way to hide the bright yellow flowers, and she really hadn't thought this through because she can't put them in her pack, either. Hopes crushed, but flowers intact, she does her best to muster her coldest stare at her chipper comrade.

She expects Kes' grin to widen further when she sees his eyes drop to her hands.

Instead, it softens, and Jyn's tempted to call it wistful. The crinkle lines around his eyes are gone, lips curving a touch downwards. 

"Flowers?" His mouth moves, though no sound comes, as if he's trying the word again, or if another question is trying to materialize, stopped by his self-preservation.

She stiffens - there's no way in hells she's reveal who they're for. The two of them won't be able to walk around base without hoots and hollers for months.

Kes doesn't ask. He merely stares, and Jyn wishes she were Cassian, able to read all the emotions flitting across his face. Instead, she's pretty sure a blush is creeping up her own.

She can read movements, though, and warily eyes Kes as he reaches out.

His eyes flicker up to Jyn's.

Confusion gains hold of her senses, her scowl dropped in favour of parted lips. When she doesn't bite, Kes touches the petals with the back his knuckles, ever so gently, and it's only then, when she recognizes the aches in the depths of his dark eyes, that Jyn remembers Shara Bey. 

When their eyes meet again, Jyn doesn't see her team's loudest mouth, but a man who knows separation and the deep cutting loneliness that comes with it.

"Y'know," Kes says, after the stretch of silence, "I'll bring them back for you. I'll make sure they make it to your quarters without anyone noticing, if that's alright?"

It's Jyn turn to find a loss for words. Her hand moves instead, passing the flowers to Kes. He's already started walking when she says:

"Thank you."

Kes turns, glancing over his shoulder. "I wish someone had done this for me, that's all." He smiles gently, and Jyn returns the expression. Kes' smile widens. "Now c'mon, Erso, or else we're gonna have bigger problems than squished flowers!" 

* * *

Jyn's bunkmates are off on missions for the foreseeable future, which turns out to be a good thing. She's been back on Base for two days with no sign of Cassian.

She sinks onto her bunk, working on detangling her hair after a much-needed sonic. She's getting antsy being on Base alone - sure, her Pathfinder buddies were here, and Bodhi's due to fly in tomorrow, but the bright yellow flowers sitting on her desk are a reminder of what she's missing.

Sighing, Jyn flops back onto her mattress, wondering where in the galaxy Cassian might be. She'd given up on harassing Draven early on, having tired of hearing the same monotone reprimand that cited far too many regulations to ever stick. What did stick was the final attempt, where he'd reminded her that Cassian's location was anonymous for his own safety, and it would do no good to the Rebellion or him to have Jyn running after him at any given moment.

( _He's perfectly capable of handling missions on his own, Sergeant, and he's been doing so since -_

 _The age of six,_ she interrupted, and Draven frowned - at least, a deeper frown than what he normally wore around Jyn.

_No. For the Rebellion - fifteen. I don't know what he's told you._

At that point in time, not much at all.) 

Now, Jyn's gotten used to the ebb and flow of Cassian's presence, much like the shadows dancing across her bunk as their system's sun slowly touched the horizon. There's a singular window in her shared quarters, small and high enough she can't reach it without standing on a chair, so it remains unobstructed, letting in the flashes of light and darkness as recruits outside run through training under the handheld lights of their supervisors. 

Jyn still doesn't know everything about Cassian. His past, specifically. As a person, though, she notices what others don't, catching him off guard with her observations. The more Jyn's learned to read Cassian, the more assured she feels about her place in his life, and his in hers. The safer she feels, the more she opens up to him - and he, to her. 

Hints of a personality she'd only glimpsed before now manifest in inside jokes and gazes only the other can understand. It's a thrill she's never felt before. For two beings who learned not to trust, the concept of speaking without words is overwhelming. 

Their relationship as a whole is, as well. After all, the first thing Cassian does upon return to base is send word to her. He can't meet her until after a debrief, regulations say, but that doesn't stop him from telling her that he's arrived. He doesn't have to - but he does, anyways. 

Which is why she's caught completely off guard when a series of knocks rattles her door and her nerves. There's only one person in the galaxy who knocks in that pattern.

"Jyn?"

The voice is unmistakable. She sits straight up, suddenly realizing she hadn't bothered to finish getting dressed. She reaches for her boots, which sit by the foot of her desk, still covered in grime. Her eyes land on the flowers sitting in a canister of water.  _Shavit._

"Jyn?" Cassian repeats, louder this time. "If you're busy I can come back later, just wanted to check in."

"No!" she shouts, far too loud, far too quickly. Smacking her forehead, she adds: "I'll, uh, be a minute?" 

"You have sixty seconds." 

Jyn rolls her eyes, reaching for a clean shirt.

She contemplates just chucking her boots at him.

Obviously Cassian wasn't taking her literally, but lately he's been trying to instill the concept of punctuality in her. It wasn't really working. Jyn's too used to running on her own schedule and sleeping wherever she thought was well protected and uncomfortable. She won't forget the look on Cassian's face when she'd spooked some new recruits by falling asleep on a sparring mat.

Tugging her shirt on, she scrambles to put together a plan for the flowers. Her knee bumps against the table and the entire canister tips. She catches it in the nick of time, spilling some water but no other casualties.

"Fifty, Erso, and every second over is one hour of training duty."

"I am NOT going on training duty," Jyn snaps, eyeing the flowers.  _Karking hells._ She'll just throw them at him and run in the opposite direction. There's no way to do this without embarrassing herself.

Maybe she'll just leave them here and pretend she'd gotten them for herself. It wouldn't be the first thing she'd splurged on: new gloves, some jogan fruit, now the sunflowers - 

"Jyn!"

Cassian sounds like he's suppressing a laugh. Jyn's definitely suppressing the urge to throw the whole canister at his head - as well as the part of her that delights at the sound.

Instead, she unlocks the door, fully aware Cassian could've sliced the passcode and gotten in himself. It's not like Jyn hadn't done the same with his. She appreciates the modesty.

Hydraulics hiss as the door slides open. "You're late," Cassian remarks, smiling. He's wearing what Jyn likes to call his casual wear - the exact same outfit she'd first seen him in. A clean, rumpled shirt, tan pants, and his old brown jacket. She'd poked fun at him for how bland his wardrobe was. Excluding everything he wore for covers, obviously, because those weren't  _Cassian's_ clothes. He'd explained that the outfit was comfortable but 'appropriate for interaction with superiors and sufficient for Alliance standards'.

Jyn's pretty sure he just has a favourite jacket, despite him insisting otherwise. She's not complaining.

"You're  _two days_ late, by my count."

Cassian raises his hands in mock self-defense. Jyn smiles at that, relaxing enough to read his expression. He looks a little tired, but not any more than average, and she doesn't see any visible injuries or signs of pain. He's excellent at masking the latter, but Jyn's learned that with Cassian, the absence of something is a hint in itself.

He looks fine. Great, in fact, and Jyn doesn't want to dwell on that thought any longer.

Jutting his chin out, he replies: "Ran into some trouble. Ship captain didn't think I was paying him enough." Reading Jyn's expression, he adds: "no casualties, just time and some credits." Jyn tilts her head, stepping away from the doorframe. Crossing her arms behind her back, she leans her shoulder against the wall.  

"Could've commed."

Leaning away, she lets Cassian step into her quarters. The door slides shut behind him.

"I was still in Imperial space."

It's their usual dance. After all this time Jyn still struggles to verbalize how much she misses him. She's not used to people she misses coming back so often, only for her to miss them all over again. It's awful, but she'd would rather say goodbye a thousand times than never be able to say goodbye ever again.

"Could've sent a 'crypted message." 

Jyn sighs. Cassian turns, walking towards her bunk, and Jyn follows, keeping her back out of his line of sight. 

"I would've gotten back by the time you sliced it." He looks at her before perching on the edge of her roomate's bunk.

It is their usual dance, with the addition of Jyn's struggling to hold under Cassian's seemingly casual but inquisitive gaze. He doesn't ask her anything, doesn't even raise an eyebrow, but she knows he's noticed. She holds on, waiting for him to ask and to give her an opportunity, but he just... doesn't.

"Oh really?" 

He doesn't even smile at her, kark him, just gazes at her with adorably innocent eyes. 

"Indeed." 

He smirks. With a groan, she summons the instinct she'd been repressing and tosses the sunflowers at him.

" _Kark_ you, Cassian," she says, laughter choking out her false anger, "I was trying to be  _nice_ to you." 

Amazingly, Cassian catches the flowers. The look on his face as he stares at them makes the whole ordeal worth it, Jyn thinks. Shock, disappearing into recognition, amazement. Not once does Cassian's impassive mask slip over to protect himself from the onslaught of emotions.

Of everything, that is her victory. 

"These are for me." 

It's almost a whisper. Jyn tilts her head - Cassain's ducked his head to look at the flowers, throat bobbing as if he's reworking sentences. 

"Yeah," she answers. "I got them for you while we were-" 

"Flowers?" 

Jyn's instinct is to retreat, because kark, he hates them, doesn't he? They were a waste of credits to him, and maybe he's allergic, she didn't think of that did she - but then he looks at her, so bewlidered and so unabashedly himself her mind fizzes out completely. 

"You can eat them. The seeds, I mean. Not too sure about the flowers, I didn't ask." He's touching the petals now. "Maybe with salt?" He complains a lot about the rebel's lack of salt, these days, so much so she thinks he's unleashed a lifetime's worth of pent up frustration on her. She watches him rub the petals, gentle in a way she's only seen him when mending droids - softer than anything she's witnessed from him. 

Which is a lie - he's looked at her like that, held her like that, too. She _knows_ this feeling.

(He reaches up to cup her face, gently, and strokes her cheek with the same care and precision he treats the flowers with. Part of Jyn tells her she should feel threatened, that she should snarl and twist the hand away and run, but that part is quickly silenced by the look in Cassian's eyes and the ever-growing trust between them.)  

"Thank you," Cassian says, so earnest and quiet and brutally real Jyn can feel the two simple words deep within her bones. 

* * *

Cassian wets his lips, wanting to say more, anything more, about how beautiful the flowers are, how much they mean to him - about how beautiful Jyn is, about how much he means to her.

He's tried, sometimes, to tell her these things. But he, like her, is so much better at speaking through actions. But unlike him, Jyn doesn't fret over choices. She does what she feels is right. She doesn't think about the long term impacts, about how her actions will ripple through the long term. She just  _acts._ It seems simple, and yet Cassian knows how difficult doing the right thing can be. He's defined his life by that choice. 

So Cassian hasn't told her about the wishblooms of his native planet, nor how their red veins sparkle in a world of soft, fresh snow coloured gold by sunrise. He hasn't told her they stopped blooming once the skies became permanently grey, without sunlight to remind them to blossom, without new hopes for them to represent. He hasn't told her that soft, golden yellow is his favourite colour, a colour he hasn't seen in decades until the moment she thrust these sunflowers in his face. 

"Thank you," he repeats. Cassian knows she knows him better than anyone else in the galaxy, has discovered tells of his no Imperial interrogator could ever decipher, and through this he hopes she'll understand the depths of what he's trying to say. "They're beautiful." 

Jyn shrugs, an excuse to duck her head and let loose hair fly into her eyes.

"They reminded me of you," she murmurs, so softly he wouldn't have heard her if he hadn't spent his life listening for things he shouldn't be hearing. If he wasn't in tune with her every breath as if it were his own, punctuated not by puffs of cold air or a sniper's cool heartbeat, but the flutter of her eyelids.

What did she see, in these bright yellow flowers, that could've possibly reminded her of him?

He assumes it's a compliment, by Jyn's averted eyes - a far cry from her usual ribbing smile. She doesn't nudge his shoulder, nor does she cleave the air between them with witty remarks and the fear of drawing any closer than camaraderie.

They'd crossed that line, long ago, when their lips had touched under ebbing, fading light, and every time since. Yet, they still hesitate to give life to anything more than moments in half-darkness.

A canister of water sits on the table by Jyn's bunk. Drips of water dots the table's surface, and spill across the edge as a few flecks on the floor. Presumably she'd kept the flowers there and sprayed the ground when she'd given them to him.

Cassian returns them to that spot. Jyn's gaze bores through his back as he does so.

He turns to face her. Her face is clean of expression - no, her lip's tugged into the lines she draws whenever she's hurt. She's already pulling away from him, of course. Because he'd put them back.

"I didn't want them to get crushed," he explains.

Jyn looks up. He crosses his hands over his heart, a sign he finds himself using more frequently. A one word question. She brightens, grinning broadly (and putting him at ease).

She gives him the hug he's asked for, throwing her arms around him, Cassian repsonding in kind. They fit perfectly together. It astounds him every time, but as they grow more comfortable with each other it's become less of surprise. It's more like coming  _home._

Once, he thought home meant the flat little house an ancestor of his built long ago.  

Eventually he learned home was anywhere a being felt safe and longed to return to. It made sense because up until the age of six, his house  _was_ safe. Cassian hasn't known safety since it'd been torn apart by war, only approximated the feeling in hyperspace with only Kay watching over both him and the controls. But with Jyn tucked into his arms, he feels...

 _querer, amado,_ words he knows in Basic and in almost ten other languages where an equivalent is found and commonly used. But never, in his mouth, truly _felt._

In anything but the language he first  _understood_ the definition in, in anything other than the language he rarely touches, unless the situation demands it, these words mean nothing to him. The situation is usually war, not...

Jyn barreled into his life, with Bodhi and the Guardians in tow, and he'd reluctantly started picking words of friendship more often. _Querido. Querida. Te quiero._

He found himself laughing when the others' tongues caught on syllables, blushing when Dameron chose to serenade Bey publicly or when Princess Organa herself reached for long-unused insults in frustration.

"I missed you," Jyn's voice is muffled, face buried in his shirt. He supposes that's why she chooses to make the confession, in the safety of his arms where nobody, including himself, can read her expression.

"I'm sorry I'm never around," he murmurs. "I don't even know when I'll be going."

"Don't be." Jyn lifts her face up to look at his. "We chose this. I chose this." They chose this life. They chose each other, and continue to chose each other. After every mission, after every sunrise. Her eyes sparkle with the truth, earnest and achingly open. 

He wants to kiss her. Judging by Jyn's eyes flickering somewhere below his, she feels the same way. (Suddenly he's aware of how recently he's shaved.) Fear tells him it'd ruin the moment. Cassian wants to keep them here, where their relationship is so complex and yet is summed up by a bouquet of bright yellow flowers known for their strength and search for the light. Jyn's grown past the labels he so easily throws on things. She's outgrown even the preciousness of the word querida, though she's still very much dear to him, and _girlfriend_ feels absolutely lackluster right next to it.

She's a friend, a dear one, but is not just a friend. He's been given gifts by others in their tight-knit Rogue crew; spent plenty of evenings discussing matters of mathematics and existence with Kay; kissed a couple of rebels, long ago; found camaraderie with sparring partners; and once had someone to come home to, someone who spoke of flowers and hope, someone who was home. 

Never had they all been rolled into one person, one relationship.

Usually Cassian lets her move first, reigning in his feelings with an awareness of his advantages in age and height (and his belief he still doesn't deserve these moments).

Tonight, though, he's crushed by Jyn's... what all Jyn's done for him. These flowers, this hug, this smile. All Cassian's given in response is a blunt stare and mumbled thanks. Not that kissing her would make up for it. Actions can change the galaxy, of course, but physicality in a relationship is an act of lust, not...

"I missed you too. I always do." 

Jyn's eyes flicker back to his. She smiles. It's softer, no longer a broad grin, and yet more powerful.

As if pulled by a mind-trick, Cassian moves, taking her hand to touch his lips. She presses her lips together, biting back a laugh (because he could just  _ask_ her, kark it, instead of using her own hands to sign the question), and touching the same fingers to his cheek.

Satisfied with her response, he closes the space between them.

Breathing as one, Cassian's mind catches around the one word he'd been to afraid to speak aloud.

Love, lust - trust bridges the two. Neither can exist in its purest form, the only form Cassian ever considers especially with her, without trust. It's the tiniest of things, like Jyn feeling safe enough to buy him things like  _flowers_ , for Force's sake, but it meant all the galaxy to him. 

Now that they've begun, he can't stop, as if pulled into a dizzying orbit. He can't tell who's the center, who's the planet and who's the star - it's more like they're twin suns circling in an endless, aching loop. It doesn't matter. 

What matters is she's blossoming for him so beautifully, so brightly, and he's never felt so alive, so happy, so adored. He'd have lost himself in her pull if not for his knee hitting Jyn's bunk, and consequently, reality. 

"We need to talk-"

"Later," Jyn murmurs into his hair. "We can - after -"

"But what if I-" He protests.

(What if he's gone by then? How many conversations had been cut short by an urgent mission? And what if he didn't come back to finish it?)

"You won't." Jyn pulls away to frown at him, raking fingers through his hair, teasing under his open collar. "I won't let you." 

Cassian rests his cheek in her palm, and Jyn gives him a tiny smile with reddened lips. "I know," he says, shaking his head. He can read her like flimsi, and she knows him better than anyone ever had. He can't hurt her, no matter his fears. "I-I just, what if we don't _have_ later?"

Jyn sighs. They both settle on the edge of her bunk. Cassian frowns as she rests a head on his shoulder. 

"Promise me you'll sta-still be here in the morning." 

A promise to stay is something he can't normally make, not in a galaxy where a planet can be destroyed in minutes. (The one promise he's made to himself is to never make one he can't keep.) Especially not to Jyn, who'd been shattered over and over again by the same, broken, promise. 

"I will." 

But he can stay until the morning. Cassian has nowhere else worth being, nothing else worth pursuing at least for a few hours. He could sleep, could go over a report, could clean up his quarters, do a million minute services for the Rebellion, but those can wait, now. Just for a night. He's never wanted anything for himself, never thought himself deserving of nice things. The splash of yellow at the fringes of his vision tell him otherwise - so does Jyn, her fingers lacing between his own.

Cassian wants this, enough to ask.

* * *

Golden light streams in, highlighting the disparity of Jyn's clothes in a heap on the floor and Cassian's neatly folded on her desk. The sunflowers perk at the sight, beginning their daylight journey of chasing light and hope.

Cassian's comm remains silent and Jyn's alarm is still asleep in her arms.

Warmed by starlight - no, sunlight - they dream. 

**Author's Note:**

> Fighting for my trust and you won't back down  
>  Even if we gotta risk it all right now  
>  I know you're scared of the unknown  
>  You don't wanna be alone  
>  I know I always come and go  
>  But it's out of my control  
>  And you'll be left in the dust, unless I stuck by ya  
>  You're the sunflower, I think your love would be too much  
> \- _Sunflower,_ a rebelcaptain mood  
> 


End file.
